Huwebes, Marso 20, 2014

I first knew of Imelda Marcos during my Sibika class back in grade school. Her name was repeatedly mention as I studied history in higher years of primary school all the way until high school. The thing is, I've only read about her. I've never really seen or heard her. The first time I actually saw her was when we watched the documentary about her in our STS class.

While watching Imelda talk and move about in the film, she reminded me a lot of my Aunt. When I relayed this information to my father, the only thing he said was "Well, that's because Imelda is my sister's idol."

They were similar because they were both:

An Elitist. In the film, you could easily see Imelda's prestige life. She lives in a house that is luxuriously furnished, wears fancy clothes with different brooches to suit each style and talks in a way that seems like her only purpose in doing so is to impress people by not speaking the native language. It was even mentioned in the film that Imelda would continuously have parties and karaoke sessions in a yacht with people she invited.

Enthusiastic. Imelda Marcos was highly optimistic. She was a happy-go-lucky person who always saw the brighter side of things. At the time when she was brutally stabbed by a bolo, she just made a joke about the weapon being ugly. She said that if she was going to die, the murder weapon should be neatly tied with a pink ribbon. When his husband, Ferdinand Marcos, was in his death bed, she sang him a lullaby with her beautiful voice. Imelda Marcos is a very strong woman to be able to hide all her pain and cover it up with smiles.

An Altruist. Although Imelda was always full of herself, she never hesitated to help others who she deemed was in need. One can't deny that the first lady has played a major role in the betterment of the country during the Marcos reign. She had several projects including the building of hospitals, which further helped those in need.

A lot of people dislike my Aunt because of her attitude the same way some people hate Imelda Marcos. But, just because some people have negative values doesn't mean they can't be of help to our society. Imelda may be one of the biggest contributors to our country, but people can't see this because they stop learning more about her when they see her attitude.

I wasn't able to watch the screening of Blade Runner on campus but luckily, I was able to download a copy of the Final
Cut quite easily. The only differences
it had with the Director’s Cut were just revisions on some of the aesthetic, audio-syncing,
and continuity problems/aspects encountered in previous versions. Also, some
lines were altered. It’s surprising actually how many versions this film has.

Moving forward, I was pretty excited to
watch the film since I’m a big fan of ‘80s films plus it stars Harrison Ford
and is directed by Ridley Scott. Enough said.

The film is set in what is apparently the
year 2019 in a Los Angeles that looks all dark and congested, like the
look/feel that films like Pacific Rim and the recent remake of Total Recall
went with. It portrays the sort of underbelly of society which shows that it hasn't really changed that much other than the fact that there are flying cars around
them.

It starts off like most films by establishing
the conceptual foundations needed to understand all the things that are about
to happen in the film. But as Decker, a blade runner tasked to “retire” Replicants
on sight, gives chase to the four escaped Replicants (artificial humanoids with
a limited lifespan created for entertainment and off-world labor), that’s when
things become dragging, and a bit confusing. The remainder of the film was just
Decker tracking down these Replicants on the loose. Apparently, in the Director’s
Cut and Final Cut, Decker’s explanatory voice-overs were cut out of the film
which had me thinking, would the inclusion of those have helped the film to
make more sense? Regardless, the film basically continued as this bizarre Replicant
hunting trip. Like when Decker finally engaged with the female Replicant, Pris,
their fight scene could have made much more sense if Pris hadn’t decided to do
flips towards Decker from all the way across the room to continue the fight.
That stunt gave Decker a pretty big opening to take her down and down she went.
It was ridiculous, honestly.

Keeping in mind that this came out in
between the 2nd and 3rd Star Wars films, it could have
done much better. Still, the technologies used in this film, both actual and
hypothetical, are commendable to say the least.

Miyerkules, Marso 19, 2014

In BBC's podcast documentary entitled "The Rhetoric of Cancer," Andrew Graystone, using narrations and interviews, explores the language surrounding cancer. Throughout this podcast, he constantly uses military and war metaphors in order to address and approach this disease. It revolves around the choice of fighting back this antagonist-like disease.

Cancer is a class of disease characterized by the out-of-control cell growth. Not one, not two, but 100 types of cancer exists and each one of them is classified by the type of cell it affects. Cancer harms the body when damaged cells divide uncontrollably and form lumps of tissue called a tumor. Well, I think cancer can be considered a mutation. Mutations happen all the time and we can see it everywhere; it's natural.

Andrew Graystone mentioned that our society should stop treating cancer as our enemy. When somebody dies, it is inevitably described as “after a long battle
with cancer”. It is as if the word processor sees “died of cancer” or
“died from cancer” as a negative. Like what Mr. Graystone said in his podcast, cancer cells are already a part of him therefore he must learn how to live with it.

The eighth episode of the sci-fi series
The Twilight Zone is basically just one big irony.

The story begins by introducing the
bookish Henry Bemis and his rather dreary life brought on by his wife, who sees
reading as something that’s pointless and ridiculous and will stop at nothing
to prevent Henry from doing so, and the strict boss he has at his bank job
who’s only interested in efficiency and not education. So naturally, Henry
would try to sneak a peek at anything he could read every chance he got, like
how he goes into the bank vault every lunch break to go read his book. This particular
habit of his is what saved him one day when the earth gets wiped out by a
nuclear event which shook him unconscious in the safety of the vault. When he
came to and realized that no one around him had survived the blast, he
considers committing suicide until he sees a library. Like the “suffocated”
bookworm that he is, he’s ecstatic about his discovery and proceeds to organize
his ambitious reading list for the months to come only to be made useless when
his glasses accidentally broke. Quite a
tragic turn of events, yes, and I think that’s just part of the message/idea of
the episode. That message, I’m guessing, is that whoever you are, life rarely
works out the way you want it too. Take Henry Bemis for example, a relatively
decent man who wanted nothing more but the freedom and time to read his beloved
books and after surviving the blast and discovering the library, it was like he
was finally blessed with the two things he’s been wishing for only to be taken
away by a cruel “plot twist” that was thrown his way. Life really is just like
that I guess.

The arts and sciences have always grown
simultaneously with the progress of human civilization. These two inseparable
concepts are the backbone of man’s culture and society from the ancient times
to the present. However, these parts of human life are two sides of the same
coin, one taps into the infinite span of a human being’s creativity and
imagination to create amazing and awe-inspiring masterpieces that withstand the
tests of time and continue to enrapture those who experience it while the other
is derived from the never ending quest for knowledge and man’s understanding of
the secrets of nature, enabling the progress of technology and civilization
itself into the world we know today.

Although most assume that arts and
sciences go together like fire and ice, it’s actually the other way around. The
arts have always relied on science for inspiration for new creations like music
and films while science relies on the arts to gain fresh, new ideas that can be
made into reality. The influence of science in the field of music for example,
shows how the two interact at a closer degree. Musical compositions ranging
from classical orchestra pieces like “The Planets” by Gustav Holt to more
familiar ballads and pop songs such as “Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra
and probably even “E.T.” by Katy Perry have ideas that are inspired by science,
and in some cases science fiction. Another art form that has been in close
relationship with science is film. The sci-fi genre along with numerous
adventure and fantasy movies have their roots based on scientific concepts and
theories and we all know how popular these become, I mean, have you seen the
line during Star Wars? Science has also been influenced by the arts, wild and
strange ideas that are thought to be science fiction may actually be reality
through science. Sci-fi concepts like anti-gravity and time travel that were
thought to be pure fantasy are actually closer to the real than you think.

Man’s history has been written
through arts and sciences; how they affected each other and most of all, how
they affected society. The legacy of mankind is seen in every discovery,
composition, invention, masterpiece, edifice, and film in which our culture and
our very lives are imbedded within. No matter what happens in the future, we
can be sure that the arts and sciences will go on, in an everlasting scientific
symphony.

Besides her impressive shoe collection
and being famous (or rather infamous) for being Ferdinand Marcos’s wife, I’m
pretty much clueless when it comes to Imelda Marcos. Watching a documentary on
her gave me an interesting look into this sort of “origin story” of hers.

Apparently, she was quite the catch back
in the day. Ferdinand took notice and after a week of what could only be called
a whirlwind romance, the two got hitched. To be honest, I was quite skeptical
with most of the film’s content, although I still did try to be open-minded
while watching. So when they got married less than 2 weeks after they first
met, the first thing I thought of was that it was ridiculous. Second, I bet it
was just a political move by Marcos. As Marcos rose to power, apparently, so
did she. She was making all of these international trips, meeting and making
meetings with foreign executives like she was the President of the Philippines.
I mean, yes if you’re married to the president of the country, you get certain
privileges and a particular level of authority but honestly, I think she was
just enjoying her status just a wee bit much.

Another thing I found sketchy was the
assassination attempt on Imelda. I mean, it was either a really poor attempt by
an incompetent assassin-wannabe, or it was staged. Because honestly, if the guy
really wanted to take out Imelda, he would have been better off had he targeted
a more sensible body part to attack. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I
wanted the guy to succeed, I’m just saying it doesn't quite make sense. I mean,
I’m thankful for the fact that Imelda had numerous structures (particularly the
CCP among others) built for the country (which lead to her being tagged as
having an “edifice complex” which I think was pretty clever for whoever came up
with it).

After watching the documentary and seeing all of the things that have happened in her life, one thing that stuck to me the most was when she was drawing these symbols near the end of the film. there were too many symbols and combinations of symbols to remember (hence the time lapse). And so, the last thing I remember thinking as the film ended was, "Wow. This woman is delusional."